Christmas Party
by soverysesual
Summary: Mindy throws this year's Christmas party as a distraction, and Danny helps. Based on the picture from Mindy Kaling's Instagram. Basically what I want to see from the Christmas episode, but of course I'm sure the TMP writers have something much better up their sleeves! Please enjoy!


In regards to this year's Christmas party, Mindy had made the executive decision that it would be held in the office. The plan was that, hopefully, this Christmas party wouldn't be an epic disaster like last year's and the whole Josh situation. She hoped that everyone could help plan it and set it up this year, making things a teensy bit less stressful for her, especially because she was already pretty stressed out about relationship stuff.

Mindy and Cliff were starting to date, and she was really excited that she'd have a date to the Christmas party that wasn't a douche bag like Josh had been. Unfortunately, Cliff had to go visit his parents in Maine on the same night, and Mindy was pretty bummed out about it.

Not that they were serious yet or anything, but she really liked him and she really wanted to spend the party with him. So, to distract herself, she threw much of her attention into planning the party.

Surprisingly, Danny was super into helping out, too. She told him all about the Cliff dilemma and he simply told her to keep her chin up and not worry, that the party would still be fun without him.

That was a large part of why Danny was so excited to help with the party this year. He was ready to show Mindy that she could have fun without Cliff, and that should could maybe have even more fun with _him_ instead.

The night of the party, Danny showed up with the greatest gingerbread house yet.

"It's two stories! See how the top part here has licorice siding? And the chimney's got black licorice cotton candy I got specially made just for the smoke effect!" Danny explained, with a gorgeous smile on his face and his eyes bright like a child on Christmas morning. Mindy bounced up and down with excitement.

"Danny! This is so freaking cool! I'm going to blow this up all over Instagram! Is that okay?"

"Yeah… just like… credit me or whatever…" he said still smiling, she nodded as she took a bunch of pictures and was blurting out different hashtag ideas for it.

The gingerbread house was a good distraction for about an hour or so, but then they both needed to start making their rounds with the different guests, and the separated for a while.

Mindy started to get a little more bummed out with each person she talked to. They kept asking about Cliff or if she was currently dating someone, and she kept having to repeat herself over and over again, reminding herself that her special someone wasn't there to spend the evening with her.

Finally she took a break from mingling to find Danny and give him his Christmas gift. It took her a few minutes but eventually she found him out on the balcony.

"Danny? What are you doing out here?"

He jumped a little when she spoke and he shrugged as she made her way down the snowy steps to where we was hanging around by the picnic table.

"Ah, I just needed some space… it was getting kinda crowded in there with Morgan's whole soccer team or whoever those people are," he lied. He was actually out there trying to drum up the courage to give her the gift her got her for Christmas. Danny then notice that she wasn't wearing a coat and immediately took his off and put it around her shoulders.

"Danny I'm fine I'm wearing a sweater, you just have that button up…"

"No no I'm good, I'm a hot blooded Italian you know me." They both chuckled, knowing that he was alluding to his frequent sweating issues. They were quiet for a few moments as they stood close together, watching the snow fall on the city around them.

"Oh, I brought you your gift!" Mindy said, seeming thrilled about it. Danny was surprised that the large package she was holding was for him, but he smiled as she handed it to him.

"Can I open?"

"Of course!"

He slowly peeled off the wrapping paper of the large, but rather thin package. Mindy loved how delicate he was about opening his gift, not wanting to make a mess.

"Mindy holy crap how did you get this?"

It was a signed copy of The National's latest album on vinyl, signed by the whole band with a special note to Danny that read _Hey Danny! Keep being the best OBGYN in NYC!_

_"_Oh it wasn't too hard…." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Ok I might've had Morgan email them telling them that it was a very special wedding present for you… They're expecting pictures from the wedding but don't worry I'm pretty good at photoshop-" he cut her off as he hugged her, laughing at how ridiculously sneaky she was at getting what she wants.

"It's perfect Mindy! Thank you so much! Hold on I have something for you." He set the album on the table and then reached into the chest pocket of his coat that still happened to be around her. They didn't even notice how close they were.

Danny pulled out a package smaller than Mindy's, but not too small. She slipped her arms through his coat sleeves and he handed the package to her. She removed the bow first and handed it to Danny before she began to rip the paper open. As she opened the gift, he stuck the bow in her hair and smiled.

"You're such a child!" she laughed, and then she looked down at the velvet jewelry gift box in her hand. "Danny?" she asked quietly.

"I wanted to get you something great this year, since I'm so thankful that we're friends now and that you're not in Haiti anymore…Just open it," he said, his voice low and almost to a whisper, a smile still gracing his face.

She gasped as she looked down at the charm bracelet in the box. It was a beautiful Pandora bracelet with the charms perfectly and evenly placed on it. Each charm twinkled in the moonlight. It spelled out _MINDY_ in pretty silver charms, with different themed charms in between each letter. There were also some regular pink gemstone charms that were gorgeous that filled in the empty spaces. Danny scratched the back of his neck nervously.

"I hope you like it, I wasn't really sure if it was your style and I've never made one of these things before. I, uh, I picked out the charms special." He moved behind her so that he could point out each charm.

"This one is a shoe, cause I know how much you love to shop for shoes and clothes and stuff… That one's wine glasses cause wine's your favorite drink… I got you a stethoscope because you're a doctor of course… um, this one's a fairytale book because I know how much you want your life to be a fairytale… I got one with a bunch of hearts cause you're always talking about falling in love and stuff…"

"What's that one?" Mindy pointed to an oddly shaped one near the end of her name. She looked up over her shoulder at him and could see him blushing, his hand still on the back of his neck in embarrassment.

"It's uh… supposed to be… a piece of sushi… it's supposed to, you know, be um, our thing I guess? I don't know I thought it would be a special inside joke charm I guess just for you and me and that maybe you'd think of me when you saw it or something. But you can take it off if you want I don't know."

"Oh Danny!" she said, her eyes tearing up as she turned toward him.

"Whoa, why are you crying? Oh God, Min, please don't cry-" she shook her head to shut him up.

"It's perfect I love it so much! _Especially_ the sushi charm! Danny!" Mindy moved closer to him and kissed him on the cheek, then wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. He held her just like the time they pretended to be a couple and found himself kissing her the top of her head again. He forgot how much he liked holding her like this.

After what seemed like too short of a time for him, she started to pull away from him.

"Let's go back inside! I bet you're freezing, and I wanna show off this bracelet to everyone!" she started to pull him up the stairs and he began to blush again.

"Oh god now the whole office is going to know how corny I am."

"Who cares! They're all going to be jealous that they don't have a best friend as perfect as mine!"

He was glad that she couldn't see the goofy smile on his face as she pulled him back inside.

—-

As they made their way back into the main part of the office, where the party was still kicking, the were stopped by Morgan's outstretched arm.

"Hold up you two! You're under the mistletoe! You know what that means!"

Danny, trying to hide how much he was freaking out and hopefully avoid this whole situation altogether, gave Morgan a look.

"What, are you on mistletoe patrol or something?"

"That's exactly it, Dr. C! Looks like you and Dr. L gotta kiss! Kiss, kiss, kiss!" Morgan was clearly a little drunk, and so was the rest of the room because soon the whole room was chanting "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss" at the coworkers.

Danny felt his face get hot as set his record down on the side table next to him, and he turned toward Mindy, who was grinning at him.

"What's the deal, Castellano," she said playfully, "scared?"

He took a deep breath, shook his head, and leaned in toward her to whisper into her ear.

"I'm scared that once I start kissing you, I won't stop." He heard her gasp and he smirked, but he didn't move away from her face. "But, hey, you asked for it."

And suddenly he cupped her cheek, pulled her close, and was kissing her very softly but tenderly; enough to be kind of timid and give her a chance to keep some distance, but at the same time he tried to convey how he really felt about her. Their thoughts were drowned out by the loud cheering coming from the people in the room that began to fade away he kissed her and she started to kiss back.

The kiss was cut short as Danny began to pull away, not wanting their first kiss to get too intimate in front of all of their friends and coworkers. Mindy's eyes were still closed as he pulled away and she let out a shaky sigh. To her, the kiss felt like it has gone on forever and she hated that he pulled away, even though she understood why she did it.

The rest of the room had taken their attention off the couple and were back to dancing, drinking, and admiring the gingerbread house.

"You ok?" he whispered as he pulled her away from the mistletoe. She nodded and looked up at him.

"Did you mean what you said?" she whispered back, wishing desperately for a glass of wine. Danny was blushing again.

"Well, I mean, only-"

But he was cut off by Betsy who came running up to them, pretty tipsy.

"Mindy! Look who showed up!" Betsy practically shouted. The three turned their heads toward the elevators, where Cliff had just emerged from. Danny felt like throwing up at that moment, and Mindy looked confused and surprised.

"Cliff!" Mindy shouted, making her way toward him. Danny took this as his cue for him to go home and drink his embarrassment away, so he grabbed his record and began to make his way around the back of the party to avoid Cliff and Mindy.

Mindy couldn't really wrap her mind around anything that was happening, but made her way to Cliff quickly before anyone told him that she and Danny had just kissed, though no one actually seemed interested in it anymore. She wrapped her arms around Cliff and they kissed.

"What are you doing here? I thought you'd be stuck in Maine for a few days!"

"Well, my mom realized that I was dying to come back here and I told her that there was a very pretty girl hosting a very awesome party tonight and she let me leave guilt-free! I think she's at the point where she'll give me up for Christmas if it means I might finally settle down." Cliff and Mindy grinned at each other and she hugged him, so glad that he cared enough about her to show up at her stupid work party. The he noticed her new bracelet, as well as the fact that she was wearing a man's jacket.

"Hey, where did you get that? And why are you wearing this jacket?" he asked. She was surprised he noticed the bracelet, and also embarrassed that she had kind of forgotten about all of it so quickly.

"Oh Danny and I were out on the balcony to get some air and he let me wear his coat," she said, starting to shrug it the coat off in order to give it back to Danny. "He also just gave me the bracelet, isn't it cute…hey…" Mindy turned expecting to see Danny still around, but he wasn't there. "Oh. Um. I don't see him." She noticed Jeremy a few feet over.

"Jeremy, where did Danny go?"

He shrugged and was about to say something but Mindy ignored him, hoping he wouldn't say anything about the mistletoe in front of Cliff.

"Maybe he went home…" Mindy said quietly, starting to feel a bit sad and realized that maybe Danny was pretty serious about his feelings for her after all.

Mindy was lost in her thoughts and Cliff started to converse with Jeremy about the party.

She sighed. This thing between her and Danny, whatever it was, wasn't supposed to happen yet, especially since she was starting to date Cliff. She was feeling terrible about it but decided that tonight she wasn't going to dwell on it too much.

Mindy unconsciously slipped the coat back on and was glad to be enveloped in Danny's scent again. She didn't notice Danny slip into the elevator behind her.

She decided that could give the coat back on Monday, since she figured he must be halfway home at this point. For now, she needed to have a few glasses of wine herself. Mindy laughed to herself remembering how Danny said it was her favorite drink.

Mindy blushed as she realized that she might have feelings for him, too.

After all, no one knew her better than he did these days.


End file.
